Mr. Maximus Ametorgoh, the technology consultant and digital lead of pop out, has hinted that Ghanaian consumers may be paying extra charges for products on international sites such as Amazon, Netflix, Jumia, Alibaba, and others who will be registered on the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) non-resident e-commerce platform.
GRA’s new digital platform, Non-resident e-commerce, and digital service registration portal, is projected to generate about GH¢1.7 billion from online businesses like Netflix, Jumia, Alibaba, Amazon, etc.
Ghana Revenue Authority ( GRA ) Portal is expected to be available for use starting 1st April 2022.
This registration portal is one of the government’s efforts at increasing revenue mobilization in the country. Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, speaking at the launch of the new portal said revenue generated will help GRA meet its target of GH¢80.3billion for the year.
Maximus Ametorgoh commended the government for this initiative but also recommended that the government taxes online businesses as well.
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“I think it’s a step in the right direction because a lot of e-commerce happens within the virtual space of Ghana which goes untaxed. They however need to work on the laws of Ghana to cover more areas of the virtual space for taxation purposes.”
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He however called on Ghanaians to continue patronizing these platforms to help the GRA collect more taxes. “Definitely the consumers will have to pay a bit more in terms of the cost of the product they buy online. We should expect that when we buy something on Amazon, or Google and the likes there will be some taxes that will be applied and the cost of the product may go up.
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We should however pay for the increases because as citizens we should also pay our taxes. With the amount of money being spent on the e-commerce space in Ghana government should certainly have its share of that cake.